


The Idea of Them

by madame_faust



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Baby Dwarves, Dwarves, Erebor, F/M, Family Feels, Fertility Issues, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Kid Fic, Miscarriage, Pre-Smaug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-03
Updated: 2013-09-03
Packaged: 2017-12-25 12:01:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/952841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madame_faust/pseuds/madame_faust
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dwarves are built strong and the older they are the likelier they are to endure. The most vulnerable members of their people are the youngest and the unborn.</p><p>Halldóra has experienced more than her share of disappointments bringing a pregnancy to term. Despite having two sons, the losses are never any easier to bear. Little Dwalin does not understand why his mother is bedridden, but he is determined to make her feel better.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Idea of Them

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I own nothing and am making no profit from this story.
> 
>  **Warning** for mild descriptions of **miscarriage,** some internalized **guilt** about **fertility issues.**
> 
> That said, the fluff is so fluffy, I'd have your dentist on standby.

Halldóra was intelligent. Brilliantly bright, mind like a diamond. She knew this and it would be the height of folly and false modesty to claim that was not the case. Still, she felt downright idiotic as the healers spoke to her, with all the chiding condescension in the world.

_“We’ll give you some bandages to catch the worst of it…”_

Well, of course. Just the same as when her cycles came, only devastating rather than merely inconvenient.

_“...and if the bleeding lasts more than three days together or begins again heavily after it’s stopped, come to us right away…”_

Aye, aye, she surely would, bleeding and faint, drag herself to their doorstep.

_“Be sure to eat, but light meals. And if you’d like, willow bark tea, for the pain…”_

Her stomach was churning so badly that the idea of swallowing a drop of water made her throat tighten. Even tasting her tears as they fell over her lips was too much to ask.

_“Rest. Rest will make it easier.”_

Perhaps. If she could fall asleep and wake five days hence, when it would be over and done with, that would be easier. But she would not sleep for nearly a week; that was probably something she’d need to see the healers about, if she did.

_“I am so sorry.”_

And the apology, always the apology. No one’s fault. It wasn’t anyone’s fault, she’d heard that enough by now that she almost believed it in her heart. Perhaps if they did not insist on apologizing every time, she could believe it fully.

But Halldora did not assign blame, not to the healers, anyway. She was polite as could be, she accepted the cloth and the tea leaves. She thanked them, even, for their time and made the slow, sad trek to the hall where her husband was waiting for her. Fundin did not say anything when she emerged, just put an arm around her shoulders and tucked her close to his side, taking short strides to match her own mincing steps.

The worst of it had been last night, the bedsheets had been soaked through with gore. Halldóra had awakened because of the pain and her husband woke because she left his side. “Go back to sleep,” she urged because there was nothing, _nothing_ he could do, save compound her guilt. But he stayed up, he rubbed her back and kissed her hot brow and dabbed the tears from her eyes. Silent all the while.

Halldóra was a talker, always chattering, filling silences. But she had been beyond speech and Fundin could not think of a word to say in comfort. By nature, he did not chatter and the only sounds that filled the household that morning were Balin and Dwalin when they woke and needed tending to. Fundin took care of that, explaining their mother’s absence with some vagary about her having gone to court early. It was a terrible lie; she was never early for anything.

If Balin suspected, he did not question his father. Dwalin was too young to think anything was amiss. A lie or the truth, he knew no difference, he still hadn’t sorted out the difference between what was real and what was make-believe. At least they would not be disappointed, Halldóra reflected as Balin left for lessons and Dwalin was packed off for childminding; she never told her children when she was expecting until long after the danger had passed. Not after the first time.

She would have kept the news even from her husband, but for the fact that he knew her so intimately that he would suspect long before anyone else had an inkling. Fundin respected her decision not to say a word about it. They had been disappointed so many times, he understood the wisdom in that.

“I’ll fetch Dwalin,” she said out of nowhere. It was one of those days when he was left in the care of the dwarves and dwarrowdams who looked after the children of the nobility when their parents, aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents were all of them occupied, which happened tolerably often. Halldóra meant to fetch him once her time in the scriptorium was to end, late in the afternoon, but she was not going to work. It was too soon to put on a cheerful countenance and act as if nothing was amiss.

“No, no,” Fundin shook his head. “I’ll fetch him. I’ve time before I’m needed at court, you go on ahead - or, I’ll see if there isn’t someone - ”

“There isn’t,” she interrupted him, but her voice was resigned, not sharp. “You know there isn’t. It’s alright, he’ll have his noontime rest or...well, if he doesn’t, he won’t get in too much trouble, at least not before Balin comes home, he’ll keep him occupied then.”

If Balin did not think something was wrong with his mother that morning, he would when he came home from his studies and found her abed in the middle of the day. Even so, he was a kindly, intelligent boy; he wouldn’t say a word about it or ask a single impertinent question.

Fundin seemed ready to take a breath and argue with her, but thought better of it. “Alright,” he said easily. “But I’ll still be the one to fetch him. You go along, I can keep the Guard waiting another few minutes for me - wait.”

Halldóra was already turning away, eyes burning with the effort to keep her tears from falling again until she was out of her husband’s sight. He’d had enough of her weeping the night before, she was sure. But she stopped when she was bid, chin tilted down, eyes cutting to the floor, staring at grey stone rather than her husband’s face.

Fundin bent low and captured her lips with his, the barest brush of coarse hair and soft flesh upon her mouth before he straightened back up. “Rest,” he advised her, but he did not sound like the healers when he spoke, cool and clinical. His voice was all compassion and if she looked into his eyes she knew they would shine with care and concern. She did not look up; the sight would only make her cry harder. “I’ll be home as soon as I can.”

Halldóra bit her tongue and nodded, hastily brushing a tear from the apple of her cheek before it could fall. Without waiting a moment longer, she set out for their apartments as fast as she could go without breaking into a run. It was warm inside when she returned; the servants lit a fire and there was already a kettle going over the flames. Halldóra removed it and shifted the heavy fire screen so that it blocked the flames completely.

Dwalin had little cause to be in the sitting room if they had no company, there was precious little that would interest a dwarfling of his age, but flickering lights of yellow, red and orange would surely catch his eye. Moving slowly and methodically, she made herself a mug of tea, letting the bark steep, turning the clear water darker and darker as she stared into the cup. The kettle she abandoned upon a trivet, not bothering to cover it, uncaring if it went cold.

Leaving her mug behind, she shucked off her outer robe and wandered into the bedroom, exchanging her trousers and tunic for her night things, a short cotton tunic and loose trousers whose drawstring she did not bother tightening as she crawled into bed.

The sheets were new, the mattress had been turned. The room smelled too clean, aseptic. Not like death, but not like home either. Halldóra left the bedroom door open a crack, wide enough that she would hear when her husband returned with their son. She could just imagine what he would telling him when he retrieved him, hours before his time.  
  
 _“You must be a very good lad for your amad. She needs to rest. Play by yourself and keep quiet, can you do that for me, my boy?”_

That was not a scenario that required a great deal of imagination; Fundin had the same conversation with Balin too. When she had lain in bed before, Balin only a little older than Dwalin was now, he played very quietly until suppertime and had not spoken to her at all until she made a point of asking him how his lessons were progressing. Likely he would respond the very same way now.

It would be easy to speak around it, not to think of it when she was with Balin. Easy. So many things about her eldest had been so easy.

Halldóra was half dozing already, even without the tea that she had forgotten on the ground floor of their rooms, when she heard the sound of the latch releasing and Fundin’s footsteps as he tried to quiet his heavy tread.

“Softly now,” he whispered, presumably to Dwalin, but his voice was as deep and rumbling as a rockslide, it woke her and she turned her head to the doorway even though she knew she wouldn’t see them. “Hush. And off to your room with you.”

Dwalin said something in return, but his voice was too high and soft for his mother’s ears to catch, unintelligible from this distance with the garbled breathy quality all children’s voices possessed.

“I’ll be home soon,” Fundin promised, louder now; he must have set Dwalin on his feet. “You be a good lad and don’t trouble Ama.”

If he was not running behind his time, Halldóra did not doubt her husband would have looked in on her, but he was already late and Fundin hated being late. His wife did not feel one drop of resentment for him; as she established the night previous, there was nothing he could do.

Rolling over onto her side, she turned the pillow over before she lay her head back down; she’d dampened the other side of the pillowcase with tears already. Willing herself to sleep and thus finding herself unable to drop off as easily as she had done before, Halldóra heard all of the deliberate little steps Dwalin took as the steps of his soft leather boots sounded upon the stairs. Despite herself, she listened attentively. Two feet landed upon each step; good boy. Hopefully this time he remembered to grasp the railing.

Dwalin was young and little dwarflings were often curious. She expected him to peek his head in and have a look at her, at the very least. She did not move, hoping he would think she was asleep and spare her having to explain herself. Indeed, his footfalls paused in the doorway and she imagined he hovered a minute, anxious on the threshold of a room he ordinarily burst into, jumping, running and giggling. But the sound of her youngest son toddling away was a long time coming. Too long. Halldóra opened up her eyes and found herself staring at a fuzzy outline of a round little face with large brown eyes peering at her over the tops of chubby fingers which grasped the edge of the blanket.

“Ama?” Dwalin asked uncertainly and she tried to smile at him, but the results must not have been very good for his already wide eyes went wider still and his hands gripped the side of the bed even more tightly as he asked, “You hurt?”

“Just a wee bit,” she replied, reaching over to the other side of the bed to smooth her hand over his face. The feeling of soft skin beneath her fingers was a sweet comfort, but it would have been even more comforting if Dwalin could just take himself away for a little while. “I’ll be just fine, once I’ve had a sleep. If I’m not much mistaken, you’re due for a little rest too, aren’t you?”

Dwalin nodded silently, still looking at his mother in naked worry; perhaps he thought she was going to scold him for not taking himself to bed already. It was a fruitless exercise, Dwalin protested indulging in an afternoon sleep for these past five years, though his mother could not honestly say he did not need them. Many was the day he pitched a fit over being put down, she would retreat to her study for a little while and poke her head out the door to find her son curled up on the hearth rug; once he’d actually made it halfway up the stairs to his room before his stamina proved weaker than his will and he made a bed of the staircase.

If he preferred play to sleep this day, she would not try to stop him. And if he fell asleep in his toy chest, this one time she would not rise and make a point of tucking him snugly into his bed.

Dwalin hesitated, looking between the door and his mother lying so uncharacteristically in bed. This time Halldóra’s smile was a little more natural. “Go on,” she urged. “I’ll see you when I wake.”

The little dwarfling nodded, taking a half step back from the bed. Pausing again, he tilted his chin up to see over the edge of the bed and asked, “You be alright?”

Halldóra nodded reassuringly. “I’ll be just fine,” she promised. And she would be, in time. It wasn’t as though she had never done this before, like thousands of dwarrowdams before her.

This time it seemed her demeanor was enough to convince Dwalin. He nodded, a few shallow bobs of his head, as if he was making a very important decision and then he left crossing the room with his short, uneven strides. Halldóra watched him go, equal parts joy and sorrow in her heart. He was eye-level with their bed, already higher than most for her husband’s comfort. Dwalin was getting so big already, for all that he was still so young.

Not wanting to risk soaking the side of the pillow she lay on, Halldóra turned over on her back and let the tears fall into her hair and beard. Theirs was a long-lived race, more than triple the lifespans of Men, though the eldest of their people were still children compared to the Elves. Yet for all their long lives, she felt time ever slipping through her fingers. How many bearing years did she have left?

If she put the question to a healer, they might scoff at her. _Many,_ they would say. _You’re young yet._ And she was, she’d had Balin very young by the reckoning of their people, but it was nearly forty years more before Dwalin was born. Would it be another forty before she had a third? Would she have a third? She had two living sons and had now lost twice that number of babes who would not draw breath, most of them babes who were more of an idea than anything else.

Freya, straightforward, clear-eyed Freya, once asked her what it had been like, whether she loved the children she lost like those she bore. At the time, with her youngest son still a babe in arms, she answered true. _I loved the idea of them,_ she said and meant it then. She still would mean it, later, when the worst of the hurt ebbed away, but in the meantime an idea could be a powerful thing. Halldóra’s life was lived by ideas, reading the notions of ancient scholars, kings and scribes, copying the new ideas of the present day.

She had ideas of her own, private ones, not meant to be recorded where anyone could see them. Imaginings of what might be. A steady, thoughtful lad, like his father in manner and his mother in wit - well, that was Balin, wasn’t it? A wish come true. And another, tough as the mountain, her own little boulder of a boy, bold and strong and sweet as honey mead. Dwalin, through and through.

But there were other ideas. Flashes of inspiration. Maybe another boy, quiet, shy, bookish who would greedily devour words with all the enthusiasm of the natural born scholar. Or a girl. Pretty and clever, who would learn calligraphy with a single-minded determination and surpass her mother’s gift for art and illumination.

They weren’t real. They never existed in flesh and blood sturdy enough to last. Water through a sieve and she did not love them. But she could not stop herself loving the _idea_ of them.

Drying her eyes on her sleeve, Halldóra once again shifted and buried her face in the pillow, trying to will the images of those phantom faces from her mind as she once again sought the oblivion that sleep would bring.

* * *

Dwalin was worried. He was more worried than he had ever been about anything in the entirety of his young life. There was something very wrong with his mother and no one was there to fix it. Ada had gone away, left him all alone and Ama was in bed. Ama was _never_ in bed, not when it wasn’t sleeping time. She was always up and moving and reading and sitting and eating and singing and hugging and kissing during the day. Not laying.

Ada told him to play, but he couldn’t, not when his Ama was hurting and there was no one to take care of her. Even if Balin had been home, that would have been something, but his big brother was at school, far _far_ away and Dwalin was not allowed to go out the door by himself.

It left him with quite the conundrum. Ama said she would be alright once she’d slept and perhaps if they both had a nap at the same time, once he woke up he’d find Ama acting as she usually did. But if no one was going to take care of her, how could she feel better?

The memory was slightly blurred around the edges, but Dwalin remembered a night not so very long ago when he felt awful, his belly was in pain and everything he ate came right out the way it had gone in. Ada was with him, cleaning him up and giving him new blankets when he soiled the old ones and Ama was small enough to curl up in his bed right next to him all night. She propped him up in her arms and wiped his forehead with a cool cloth, kissing and stroking his hear. When he cried because he felt so awful, she dried his tears and told him he was a good, brave boy and sang to him softly until he fell asleep.

Another thing she did was made him drink watery tea, little sips, even though he didn’t want to. _“I know, sweetling, I know,”_ she crooned. _”But you’ll feel better for it. I promise.”_

The answer occurred to Dwalin in a flash. Tea! That made him feel all better, surely it would be just the thing to cure his mother.

Tea lived downstairs, in the hearth near the sitting room and so, it was with determined steps - two feet on each stair, one hand holding the bars of the rail _very_ tightly, as he had been told - that he made his way down to their visiting rooms, only slightly dismayed when he saw that the big heavy screen had been placed before the fire. From experience Dwalin knew it would not budge, no matter how many times he banged his hands on it or pushed it or kicked it and he nearly despaired, mouth turning down and hands balling into defiant fists - until he saw that the kettle was sitting atop a table over his head.

Now, Dwalin was not allowed to touch the kettle. Kettles were hot and his hands were easily burned, but there was something about the dark metal that always invited the fingers of tiny dwarrows to reach out and _touch._ Ama had been right by him the last time he did that too, holding him in her arms as he howled and his father ran his hands under cold water to soothe the burn.

 _“Destined for the smithy this one,”_ she remarked, though Dwalin did not remember the words clearly, or his father’s response.

_“‘Least we can count on him not to be fire-shy.”_

‘Shy’ was the last word one would ever apply to Dwalin, son of Fundin. ‘Determined’ was a better fit, although the tabletop fell high over his head, he made use of one of the smaller, wooden sitting room chairs and pushed it across the room. His brow wrinkled with the effort and his tongue stuck out of the corner of his mouth in concentration, but he smiled broadly when the seat of the chair bumped up against the front of the sideboard.

Raising his arms up high he half pulled, half wiggled his way up and onto the chair. When he managed to stand atop the seat of the chair, now well within reach of the kettle, he grinned broadly, but when he looked around remembered no one was there to witness his moment of triumph. And then he was reminded of _why_ he had rearranged the furniture and needed to reach the kettle in the first place. Dwalin was reaching out to grab hold of the heavy black kettle when faintly drifting steam caught his eye; he gasped and then smiled again, broadly.

Somehow, the tea magicked itself into a mug - a mug, he’d forgotten he needed one of those. The smell drifting up from the mug was foul, but the tea that his mother made him drink when he was unwell was an unpleasantly pungent peppermint and so he rationally concluded that the worse something smelled, the better it was at healing.

One of Dwalin’s hands curled tightly around the handle of the mug and his other hand steadied it, but then he frowned, realizing that though he had successfully retrieved his prize, he was now stuck in the difficult position of figuring out how to get _down_. The floor was a long way away, he supposed he could jump, but he would probably spill the tea and then Ama would not get better.

Very, very carefully, Dwalin lowered himself to sitting, falling on his bottom with a thump; some of the tea sloshed over the side and onto the floor, but _most_ of it stayed in the mug, even as he scooted closer and closer to the edge of the chair, so he did not have very far to go as he slid off the seat and got both feet planted firmly on the ground.

When Dwalin climbed the staircase to his parents’ room, he was more careful than he had ever been, two feet on each step, one hand at the rail, the other holding tight to the mug’s handle even though it was becoming awfully heavy. He did not want to spill even one more drop, for fear that all the magic might fall out of it if he did. Luckily, he made it back into his parents room without incident.

Ama was just as he left her, all curled up like a wrinkled tunic left on the floor, forgotten on washday. Dwalin crept back over to the side of the bed and held the mug up high, where she’d be sure to see it. “Ama!” he announced loudly. “Tea!”

She sat up then, slowly, but the action made Dwalin smile, all baby teeth and dimples. It was working already! She was sitting and sitting was better than lying down. Ama even retrieved her spectacles from the bedside table; though she was dressed for bed, wearing her spectacles made her look more like herself than she had since he came in.

“However did…?” she asked, taking the mug from him hastily and setting it down where her glasses had been.

“No, _no_ , Ama,” he scolded, pulling and wriggling himself onto his parents bed just as he had with the chair; his mother’s hand on his arm against his back, tugging him up were much appreciated. “You got to drink tea! You feel better.” Pointing at the mug behind her, worried she might have forgotten it was there, he added, “Tea.”

Not taking her eyes off her son, muttering something that sounded like, “Uncanny,” which was a word Dwalin did not know and did not comment on, his mother brought the mug to her lips and took a sip. She winced and muttered, “Ghastly,” which was a word Dwalin did know, it was a grown-up term used when something was icky.

“Good,” he nodded happily. The ickier the tea, the better she would feel. “Feel better?” he asked, tugging her free hand with both of his. “You play with me?”

“I do feel better,” Ama said, reaching over and touching his face again with dry hands that were only a little rough against his cheek. “But not well enough to play yet. I’ll have a sleep - thank you, sweetling.”

Dwalin’s face fell, just a little. It was because he spilled some of the tea, he decided. The magic must have gone out then. “I get more,” he said, but his mother grabbed the back of his shirt and kept him from leaping off the bed.

“No, that’s alright, that’s alright,” she said. “Stay right there, you. I feel _much_ better, you’ve done very, very well. And there’s nothing else to be done, I just need to sleep a bit.”

As his mother took her spectacles off and lay down on her pillow, Dwalin realized he’d forgotten something - several somethings. Rather than trying to leave, he crawled closer to her and reached out and stroked her hair slowly and deliberately, just like his mother did for him. He would have sung her a song too, but he found he was getting awfully sleepy himself; his parents’ bed was much more comfortable than his own he thought.

“Boots, Ama?” he asked, sticking his feet out so she could rid him of his shoes; he did _not_ like to sleep in those.

“Are you staying with me?” she asked, reaching over and untying his shoes, tossing them over the edge of the bed. The cloth belt around his tunic she also untied and Dwalin lay down, curling up right beside her. His mother took him in her arms, kissing his hair. That reminded him of another step of healing he had forgotten, so he tilted his head up and kissed her chin beneath her beard.

“Mmm-hmm,” Dwalin nodded, eyes already closing. “I stay ‘til you better.”

Ama shook once, then twice as if she was very cold. Dwalin snuggled closer, tucking his head right under her chin, his cheek pillowed against the softness of her chest. There were some warm drops that fell on his head and he thought maybe his mother had gotten more tea, but spilled it because she was so shivery. He tried to hold her as she held him, but he was too little, his arms too small and all he could do was pat the part of her back he could reach.

“Thank you,” she whispered and kissed him again and again on his hair, on his forehead, on his cheeks. “My sweetest little dear.” Ama stopped shivering then and he assumed she must be warm enough now. Dwalin stayed close and held on anyway, just in case.


End file.
